Low tech diagnostic approach with the MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment) fails to distinguish Alzheimer's Disease from frontotemporal dementia
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1
McGill University Montréal, Bloomfield Centre for Research in Aging, Lady Davis Institute, Canada
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2
McGill University, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Jewish General Hospital, Canada
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3
Université de Sherbrooke , Centre de recherche clinique, service de neurologie, Hôpital Charles LeMoyne and Clinique de mémoire Neuro Rive-Sud , Canada
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4
Concordia University, Centre for Research in Human Development/Department of Psychology, Canada
Objectives: To assess utility of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) to tease apart Alzheimer’s Disease from Frontotemporal dementia cases. Background: As new treatments specific for AD and FTD arise, it would be ideal to be able to use simple screening tools like the MoCA in order to clarify diagnostic category. Methods: 104 subjects (97 AD, 7 FTD by clinical criteria) were assessed. Clinical classification after lengthy clinical and neuropsychological assessment in a tertiary Memory Clinic, was considered the gold standard. All were administered the MoCA, which was rescored according to “executive/frontal subtests” vs. “episodic memory (delayed verbal memory, orientation) subtests”. The hope was that the FTD individuals would show preferential impairment on the executive/frontal subtests compared to the AD subjects. Results: The low tech (MoCA) approach did not produce non-overlapping groups. Indeed, the variability of scores among the AD subjects overlapped completely with the distribution of scores for FTD patients. Conclusions: Analysis of subtests of the MoCA did not allow simple differentiation of cases into AD vs. FTD diagnoses, even utilizing cases that had been fairly distinguishable clinically. This demonstrates the overlap seen in FTD and AD cases when only neuropsychological variables are evaluated.
Conference:
The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes, Toronto, Canada, 22 Mar - 26 Mar, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Neurologic
Citation:
Chertkow
H,
Litwin
L,
Nasreddine
Z,
Philips
N and
Whitehead
V
(2010). Low tech diagnostic approach with the MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment) fails to distinguish Alzheimer's Disease from frontotemporal dementia.
Conference Abstract:
The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.14.00138
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Received:
30 Jun 2010;
Published Online:
30 Jun 2010.
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Correspondence:
H. Chertkow, McGill University Montréal, Bloomfield Centre for Research in Aging, Lady Davis Institute, Montréal, Canada, Howard.chertkow@mcgill.ca